4 Words You Need to Stop Saying About Your Sons

The scene is a familiar one: a boy plays in the
dirt with his trucks and cars. He’s
being loud and is full of energy. He
makes the sound of an explosion with his mouth, “Booom!” as he knocks over a
tower of buckets. He’s just a happy kid
playing outside. Then someone says it—“He’s such a boy!” or “He’s all boy!”—and my skin crawls.

It’s such a common phrase, and perhaps that’s a
reason it’s so frustrating. It pops up
in my Facebook newsfeed. I overhear parents and grandparents commenting
on kids at school or at the park. Even my friends and I have joked about
our own children this way. I understand what everyone is
trying to say. The boy we’re talking about is rambunctious, active and
loud. Maybe he likes dirt and cars and wrestling. Maybe he’s
destructive or disorganized.

Whether people are saying it with pride or out of
frustration, I’ve got plenty of issues with this phrase.

First of all,
it’s promoting a very traditional and outdated gender
stereotype. I know many people swear on their life that boys are
inherently different from girls, and that may be true. But the way we
talk to, talk about and treat our children and the expectations that we have
are incredibly powerful in shaping the people they become. When
we expect boys to be rowdy and active, we are grooming them to be exactly that.

The problem is that we are genderizing behaviors and
personality traits—things that have no place being gendered. Being
active does not have a gender. There’s no gender in being shy or loud or
sensitive. Nor is there gender in being funny, smart, lazy or ambitious. Anyone
can have any (or all) of these characteristics, regardless of gender, and yet
our culture feels it necessary to assign them one anyway.

If we don’t want our children to be aggressive or destructive or disrespectful, don’t defend these actions, teach them what’s right.

Why do we feel
the need to make a behavior a male or female thing? Why aren’t they just
human behaviors?

And what REALLY makes me angry is when people say these
things in front of kids. We all know that every kid is different. While some boys are loud and rough, some are more reserved and sensitive. I’ve been working with young children for over a decade, and I’ve seen
plenty of boys at both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. I’ve
seen boys who’d rather read than play tag, boys who talk quietly and don’t yell
out in class or on the yard. Many boys who have all these characteristics
and show them differently, depending on the time or the setting. We all
know that there is not just one way of being a boy or a girl. But when we
say things like, “He’s all boy,” we’re creating and celebrating a hierarchy of
qualities. We’re saying that THIS is the way to be a boy.

So if
“all boy” is being loud, active, rowdy or however you have defined it, then
what of the boy who is not those things? Is he less of a boy? Not
100% boy?

Any child who hears this seemingly harmless comment will
take something away from it. The boy who is not “all boy” will feel
less-than and ashamed. He’ll feel like even more of an outsider amongst
those who display those qualities we’ve proclaimed to be “boy.” And the
child you’re referring to who is all boy? Well he certainly isn’t going
to shy away from whatever he was just doing. You just gave him a
metaphorical high five affirming his behaviors, because most young kids want to
be recognized as the gender they identify with.

Girls are also hearing this message. They are learning
that certain behaviors are identified with being a boy and may feel the need to
distance themselves from those. Or, if they share some of those
characteristics, they may wonder if they are less of a girl. Regardless,
kids are learning what adults think boys and girls should be and how they
should act from these types of comments.

Let’s not define being a boy as one thing. Rather, let's expand our definitions to include all the characteristics we want to see in our boys and young men.

And please, do not use, “boys will be boys” to excuse bad
behavior. No, it is not acceptable to say that “he’s just being a boy”
when a boy has punched another kid in the face. And no, it isn’t OK to
stand by and watch a kid bully others by repeatedly knocking over their towers
and then respond with a “boys will be boys!” If you do this, you are
giving permission, even encouraging, this type of behavior. These boys
are learning that their actions are normal and that they aren’t in control of
them, because it’s some “natural” part of being a boy.

If we don’t want
our children to be aggressive or destructive or disrespectful, don’t defend
these actions, teach them what’s right. Expect more. Expect something
different.

So stop calling your son “all boy” and just call it what it
is. Say, “Yeah, he’s an energetic one!” or “He loves getting dirty!” And let’s affirm all the positive behaviors that we do want to see in our
children. Instead of pointing out just the things this culture has deemed
“masculine,” start making it clear to your child that you notice and appreciate
when he’s being sensitive or generous or kind or careful.

Let’s not
define being a boy as one thing. Rather, let's expand our definitions to include
all the characteristics we want to see in our boys and young men. Let’s
focus more on celebrating and verbalizing what we want our children to be like and less on what we think our children are like
because of some old and simplistic stereotypes.